Tunji Oyelana

Tunji Oyelana, born on 4 October 1939, is a Nigerian musician, actor, folk singer, and composer of Yoruba heritage. He appeared on Broadway in 1987 in Death and the King's Horseman. Beyond his stage work, Oyelana has built a career spanning music, television, film, and academia, earning recognition alongside figures such as Fela Kuti and King Sunny Ade as one of the most widely played Yoruba musicians.

Oyelana's association with Nobel Prize-winning playwright Wole Soyinka dates to the 1960s, when he became one of the founding members of Soyinka's Orisun Masks company. As part of that ensemble, he traveled internationally performing in productions including Kongi's Harvest, The Road, Madmen and Specialists, and Opera Wonyosi. He refers to Soyinka by the Yoruba honorific "Ọ̀gá," meaning "boss." In the early 1980s, the two collaborated on a musical album that used satire to critique corruption within the Nigerian political elite. They also co-wrote the song I Love My Country. In 1996, while touring internationally with Soyinka's play The Beatification of Area Boy, both men were charged with treason by the government of Sani Abacha and were compelled to go into exile.

As a recording artist, Oyelana led the group Tunji Oyelana and The Benders, producing folk music that gained significant airplay during the 1970s and 1980s. He is credited with having sold more albums than any other Nigerian High Life musician. In 2012, Soundway Records released A Nigerian Retrospective 1966–79, a compilation drawn from that period of his output. He also served as the musician for Stéphane Breton's 1994 film Un dieu au bord de la route.

During the 1980s, Oyelana held a position as artist in residence in music within the Department of Theatre Arts at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, where he provided practical instruction and served as music director for departmental productions. During the same decade, he appeared on Nigerian television, most notably in the NTA Ibadan sitcom Sura de Tailor, in which he played the title role. Oyelana currently resides in the United Kingdom.